#2: Get High-lights in my hair

I have high-lights in my hair.

Here's the deal. I'm not yet 40 and I have white hair. I have quite a bit of white hair, as a matter of fact. If I didn't color said hair, I would have a perfectly shaped, white, skunk stripe over my right eye and down over my right ear. Just a stripe. I also have some miscellaneous white hairs at my temple and... well, everywhere else.

I do color my hair. Typically I color it the natural color of my hair, a nice brown with some red in it. Now, the question has always been, how do I color it brown and red? Well, the obvious answer is to get some highlights of red after coloring it brown. This costs about $50-85 at a salon, which is prohibitive to my personal pocketbook. So for years, since the white monsters have reared their ugly heads, I've had to choose. I usually color my hair sort of an auburn-ish color which is pretty close to my natural.

I've had some coloring incidents in life. Once my hair turned pink, when I lived in the Wild West. The color solution with the chemicals in the water there were not a good combination so I was pink about about 14 days. Once time I picked a color that was more... magenta than auburn and that was weird. Once I went "too brown" and it wasn't a good look. I also went too red and after a few weeks it was sort of orange-y looking. But most of the time, it looks like normal hair, but just not my natural brown with auburn highlights.

Until a few weeks ago. I found a store kit that was an all-over color and then highlights. COOL! So, one day Princess and I dyed our hair. She went back to her natural chocolate brown (from a weird dirty blondish red she attempted) and I colored mine medium/ light brown. And she placed the high-lights.

I was worried because I've seen people get highlights from the salon, and at home, where they look like they have stripes in the hair, zebra-esque, you might say. I didn't want that to happen to me. I kept telling Princess to not zebra me. She said she wouldn't and to not worry. Famous last words from the kid who tried to go blond and her hair is almost black naturally!

I have to say it turned out beautifully! I love it. It's lovely! No stripes, just natural looking color. It's been funny because, since we did it, people look at me and say I look different but no one can actually seem to put their fingers on what's different about me. That means she did a good job- it should look normal and natural. She's awesome! (and we didn't highlight her hair; we just colored it and it's stunning!)

We also read the directions and when it's touch up time, I don't have to do a whole all over kit; we can do some highlights! I am so excited by this. I know I'll have to "all over" color again, of course, but in the mean time, I can squeak an extra couple weeks with a highlight treatment.

So, I can cross "highlight my hair" off the 40 before 40 list!

And, while this has nothing to do with the coloring, I got a "straightener" for Christmas. A hair straightener, that is. My hair is curly and after a blow dryer it's often... fluffy. So now I straighten it and with the color-- well, I look like a whole new person! Like a before and after make over that went well. And more people notice I straighten my hair than the highlights. Now how weird is that?

What I do wonder, though, is what color is my hair now, really? Other than all the white ones, I wonder if my hair is still really that brownish red or if it's getting darker as I get older. Other than the white ones, of course. I don't want to find out, though. I'll live with it the way I remember it before the white infiltrated!

Maggie

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